The Burning Dark Read Free Page A

seated at the other table, and limped out the door.
    *   *   *
    It was late in the cycle and the station’s corridors were cast in an artificial purple night. Three turns and one elevator later, Ida was back in his cabin. He flicked the main light on, the autodimmer keeping it to a warm, low, white yellow. He tended to dim it during “daylight” as well, as the low light helped hide the nasty, functional nature of his quarters. What you couldn’t see, your mind filled in for you. He liked to imagine the dark shadowed corners were crafted out of fine mahogany and teak paneling. Just like he had at home.
    “Ida?”
    Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland was called Ida by his friends. Nearly everyone on the station called him Abraham, or worse. Mostly they called him nothing at all.
    But not her.
    He smiled, limped to his bed, and lay back. The damn knee … Ida raised his leg and flexed it, trying to get the psi-fi connection between the prosthetic and his brain to re-pair manually, but his leg was heavier than he remembered and lifting it made him feel dizzy. He dropped his leg and sighed, and closed his eyes.
    “Hello, Ludmila,” he said.
    The woman’s voice crackled with static as she laughed. It was high, beautiful. It made Ida smile.
    “How was your night?” the voice asked.
    Ida waved a hand—then, remembering he was alone in his cabin, switched the gesture for another dramatic sigh. “It was … bah. Who cares how my night was. How’s yours going?”
    The voice tutted. “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you, Ida?”
    Ida’s smile returned. “Oh, maybe one or two.”
    The laugh again, each giggle cut with noise. She was so very, very far away. “Time for bed?”
    Ida nodded and turned over. “Yeah, time for bed. Good night, Ludmila.”
    “Good night, Ida.”
    The room fell quiet, and the lights autodimmed again to match the purple dark of the rest of the station. Ida’s breathing slowed and became heavy. Underneath the sound of his slumber the room pulsed with static, faint and distant.
    *   *   *
    Ida dreamed; he dreamed of the house on the farm. The red paint on the barn behind it shed like crimson dandruff in the sun and the same sun shone in the blond hair of the girl as she beckoned him to come with her, come into the house. But when he held out his hand to touch her, he was holding her father’s Bible, the one that sour old man had pressed into his hands the very day he’d first met him, insisting Ida read the damn thing each and every night.
    Ida felt afraid. He would not go into the house. He looked into the sky, at the sun, but saw that the sun was a violet disk, its edge streaming black lines. He frowned. An eclipse? There hadn’t been an eclipse that day. He turned back to the girl, but she was gone and the door of the house was open, a rectangular black portal. Had her father sent her away already? Ida wasn’t sure … it hadn’t been then, had it? He and Astrid had another summer left, surely.
    He took a step forward, and as he breathed the country air, the farmyard pulsed with static, faint and distant.
    *   *   *
    The static from the radio cracked sharply, and Ida jerked awake, dream forgotten.
    “Mmm?”
    “Ida?”
    “Mmm?”
    “Can you tell me the story again?”
    Ida shifted. His bed was soft and the dark was pleasant on his eyes. He lay on his back and looked up into nothing. His knee seemed to have sorted itself out and didn’t hurt anymore. He had a vague recollection of a red barn and a heavy book, but he shrugged the thought away.
    “You mean Tau Retore?”
    “Yes. Tell me again.”
    Ida chuckled and turned over. The still, blue light of the space radio was now the only light in the room. Ida stared into it, imagining Ludmila, wherever she was, watching her own light in the dark.
    “Well,” said Ida. “This is how the shit went down. Lemme tell you about it.…”

SOME KIND OF HERO
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